I must say, I’m beginning to admire Henry Blodget for his unabashed willingness to ignore any irony others might see in his analytical posts about Amazon.com, like this one that looks at Citi analyst Mark Mahaney’s report that the Amazon Kindle could be a $750 million iPod-like franchise in a couple of years.

Blodget does not explicitly agree with the prediction, indeed, he points out some holes in the theory. He doesn’t fully repudiate it, however.

I’m clearly not a financial analyst and so any disagreements I may have with Mahaney’s predictions have nothing to do with market-share numbers. I have no idea about the revenues or bottom-line impact of future Kindle developments. However, since some of his analysis is based on his personal experience with the device, I feel I can at least weigh in on that front.

First, let me say I use the Kindle frequently. Not quite daily, but several times a week. My review of the Kindle from last December is still accurate. I haven’t really been surprised by anything about it during the past five months. It’s still a clunky, poorly designed piece of hardware with a ridiculous interface. Yet the EVDO (digital cellular)-powered feature that allows one to instantly purchase books from Amazon for less than $10 is near magic. That price-point for books and the instant download are what make the device work for me — and, apparently, the Citi analyst, also.

However, I stand by my earlier prediction — and this is where I find a flaw in Mahaney’s analysis: Apple won’t stand still and let Amazon have this market all to itself. As I’ve written about ad-naseum, a slightly larger iPod Touch linked to eBooks distributed via the iTunes store would match and raise the game with Amazon. At that point, Amazon would be competing with the iTunes distribution channel, but with Amazon hardware that looks and feels like it was designed in Soviet-era Russia.

Also, with Apple in the game, its eBook format would be readable via the Mac or iPhone, as well. The Kindle format is locked into a Kindle device.

As I wrote last November, I’ll continue to use my Kindle until Apple comes out with something like this (even if it’s not in the next couple of weeks):

If you search inside
Steve’s brain, I doubt
you’ll find bullet-points.

After being among the first to rant about what a horrible interviewer Sarah Lacy was at SXSW, I backed off when the crowd piled on and even ordered her book, became her fan on Facebook and suggested the controversy was a great book-marketing ploy. In her acknowledgements, obviously written before SXSW, she does take a swat at the bloggers who, “reacted violently to her (BusinessWeek cover story that led to the book deal) that it only gave me more press and legitimacy.” (The controversy in the story was the suggestion that Digg was worth $200 million.)

Yesterday, I received the book from Amazon.com and quickly scanned the first couple of chapters — enough to convince me she’s a much better writer than on-stage interviewer. On the page, she doesn’t interject herself into the narrative.

Frankly, I’m typically not a fan of biographies of still active business executives — or in the case of her book, biographical vingettes strung together in a book-length “trend story.” Over the years, I’ve discovered that books about dead people are more instructive than books about the living. Call me old fashioned — or morbid.

For example, I tried really hard to like the recent book about Steve Jobs by Leander Kahney, Inside Steve’s Brain. And while I found it nice that he eschewed the typical recounting of Jobs’ darker side, it is still a bit flat. I was especially disappointed by what must have been a publisher’s request that he put bullet-point “lessons from Steve” at the end of each chapter.

Lesson from Inside Steve’s Brain: If you want to throw cold water on a biography, end each chapter in ready-for-Power Point bullet points. Bullet points in a biography are about as elegant as big buttons on an MP3 player.

Sidenote: I really love the way that Amazon.com “Search Inside” logo juxtaposes with the book cover in that screen grab above.

I’m anticipating an off-the-grid day, but before heading out I couldn’t help myself from pointing to this instant blog-post classic from Seth Godin — a public dress-down of a newly assigned copy-editor from his book publisher. It’s the post authors and writers who blog dream of writing, but never due: discretion being the better part of valor, and all.

I’m sure there will be authors and writers all over the world bookmarking this post and e-mailing it around today.

Here’s a snippet:

“Just got some work back from a new copyeditor hired by my publisher. She did a flawless job. She also wrecked my work. Totally wrecked it. By sanding off every edge, removing every idiom, making each and every fact literally correct, she made it boring and dry and mechanical. If they have licenses for copyeditors, she should have hers revoked.”

I guess an e-mail from Seth to the editor would have conveyed the message, but I’m very glad we all got to be spectators on this one.

Later: As a clarification (thanks to the comment Seth made below), read the entire post and you’ll see that Seth’s point is this: an author has the power to respond with STET.

After a weekend of avoiding endless posts by bloggers pointing to the NY Times story on how blogging can kill you, it was nice to learn* that while it may kill you, blogging can also help you land a book deal.

Congratulations to Hugh MacLeod on the news that he has signed a contract with Portfolio Books (a Penguin imprint) to develop into a book his popular “manifesto,” How To Be Creative. Also, this proves another point about the power of Free. One of the ways Penguin knows Hugh’s book will be a success is the popularity of an earlier PDF version available for free.

As Hugh does on his cartoons drawn on the back of business cards (he can boil big thoughts down into small gems), here’s his key to being creative: “Work Hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Be nice. Be polite.”

And here’s a great side benefit from that advice: It will also help keep blogging from killing you.

*Actually, I learned this last month, but was sworn to secrecy.

Bonus link: Chris Anderson on how NOT to use a free PDF download to promote a book.

I believe I’ve mentioned on this blog before my fascination with Phillip Moffitt. Moffitt, along with Chris Whittle, started a company in the mid-1970s that is no longer around, but the alumni of that company are all over the magazine publishing world — some in very senior business and editorial roles. (Some even read this blog from time-to-time.) When they were business partners, Moffitt and Whittle were perhaps best known for their purchase of Esquire magazine in 1979. In addition to being its CEO, Moffitt served as editor of Esquire for the next few years. I read the magazine fairly closely during his years as editor. Certainly, no one (except, perhaps ad sales people) would call that era the golden age of Esquire (far from it). But for me, it could not have been more compelling. I was around the magazine’s target age and demographic. I was intrigued by Moffitt (and to a lesser degree, Whittle, who I once described on this blog as being to publishing what Tucker was to the automobile) who were six-or-seven years older than me and from Tennessee and were trail-blazing some publishing and marketing trends I thought were both radical and smart — and, indeed they were. Today, those ideas have played-out in all sorts of amazing ways — including some side paths that I have journeyed down myself.

I’ve never met Moffitt, but I recall that in the mid-80s, he wrote an Esquire essay — I believe it was around the time he turned 40 — that was a penetrating, self-reflective piece that pretty much confessed that he believed there was way more to life than what he was experiencing — so much for fame and success and trail-blazing. I would have dismissed the essay as new-age babbling or mid-life crisis (or both) had Moffitt not soon-there-after cashed-out his holdings and, well, here’s an article from today’s San Francisco Chronicle, that picks up his story there.

Quote:

“At the pinnacle of his success as chief executive and editor in chief of Esquire magazine, Phillip Moffitt walked away from it all - the glamour, the accolades, the punishing schedule - and chose instead to wake up each morning and breathe, to explore the mysteries he had always intuited. “I was drawn to a sense that there was a greater meaning to life than getting ahead. It felt intuitively, intrinsically to me as is true for most people, that in the midst of all we know - science - there is a relatedness that’s possible, a mystery; it’s always drawn me.” It was 1987, and Moffitt had no real plan. Married for part of this time, he spent the next several years living in various meditation centers “in rooms so small that [he] could often reach out and touch both walls,” according to his new book.

Over the years, I’ve spoken with many people in the magazine publishing world who worked with Moffitt, some who’ve stayed in contact with him. (They always tell me that most people ask them about Whittle.) They’ve shared with me glimpses of what he’s been doing over the past 20 or so years. Now, he’s written a book on that topic. It comes out in a week or so, and while the topic is outside my typical reading box — "Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering" — I’ve ordered a copy. If it brings me joy and meaning — or some insights into Moffitt — I’ll review it here.

[See update for link to a post from a former FTC economist who explains the concept of an “illegal tie.”]

I’m just now catching up on the news about Amazon.com forcing print-on-demand publishers to use its printing and distribution service, Book Surge, if the publishers want their books to be sold on Amazon.com. The news was covered on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. Later on Friday, O’Reilly’s Andrew Savikas wrote a detailed post explaining the kinds of lock-in Amazon.com is attempting with this move.

And yes, there is a Nashville angle to this story as one of the on-demand printing services that is being targeted by this move is Ingram Industries subsidiary Lightning Source.

Quote from WSJ.com:

“Amazon’s decision means that any of those publishers who want their books sold on the giant Web site will have to use BookSurge. Not only will that squeeze rivals like Lightning Source, it will reduce publishers’ bargaining power. Publishers will “have to abide by Amazon’s pricing,” said Bob Young, CEO of Lulu Inc, a print-on-demand publisher based in Raleigh, N.C. Mr. Young said he believed BookSurge’s prices to be “slightly higher” than other printers. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on that issue.”

I guess it’s somewhat ironic that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the attempt by Barnes & Noble to acquire Ingram Industries’ Ingram Book Group, a move that was withdrawn later after the Federal Trade Commission indicated it would contest the transaction. The transaction, which was blasted by independent booksellers because it merged the largest wholesaler with the largest retailer of books, was seen as a bold grab by Barnes & Noble to vertically integrate a competition-stiffling segment of the book distribution channel.

I say ironic, because at the time, Jeff Bezos was one of the most outspoken opponents of the B&N, Ingram deal, issuing a message to Amazon customers in which Bezos said, “To our customers: Worry not … Those who make choices that are genuinely good for customers, authors, and publishers will prevail. Goliath is always in range of a good slingshot … Our long-term strategy has been to diversify our supplier base and to increase our direct purchasing from publishers.”

So, in 1998, the concentration of book distribution and book retailing was opposed by Amazon. In 2008, at least when it comes to the print-on-demand segment of the book industry, Amazon apparently now likes playing Goliath. However, I’m sure Amazon will see it another way — as in, they are still just trying to cut out the middle guy. That spin worked ten years ago. I wonder if it will now. I wonder if it will when all those independent booksellers realize they’ll have to purchase books from Amazon?

Update: Luke Froeb, a former chief economist for the Federal Trade Commssion posted some insight into the legality of what Amazon is doing and asks, “Is it an illegal tie?”

Quote:

“Here the tying good would be on-line sales of books and the tied product would be BookSurge. If the plaintiff could show that Amazon has market power in the sale of on-line books, the plaintiff would have a pretty good chance. (This requires a market definition that excludes brick and mortar stores.) Also, if there is a dangerous probability that competition [is lessened] in the tied product market (”POD books”), the plaintiff could very well make a case that this is a per se violation.

Bonus link: Rafat Ali posts a follow-up piece regarding Amazon’s damage control on this issue that includes some great comments by some Amazon and book-publishing insiders.

Update: More on Amazon’s response to the criticism at PublishersWeekly.com, including coverage of a response from John Ingram:

In his statement, John Ingram said that while “the questions that are being raised about Amazon.com and its Booksurge division don’t directly relate to Ingram - either Lightning Source Inc. or Ingram Book Group - it clearly is alarming many of our publisher partners.” According to John Ingram, “publishers are telling us they feel Amazon.com’s actions are not appropriate.” John Ingram’s statement adds that the company has been unable to get a direct response from Amazon about its pod shift. “We all live in a world where decisions are made about insourcing and outsourcing, and free choice is important,” the statement continues. “At Ingram Book and Lightning Source, we are going to work really hard to continue to be the compelling choice as publishers make their outsourcing decisions. Our breadth of distribution channels including the online retailers remains the same, and Ingram still provides one day turnaround in the fulfillment of orders for books including print on demand titles.”

(Thanks, Lewis Pennock, for several heads-up related to this post.)

If you want to be out in front of the next Chris Anderson book every marketing consultant — and worse, your boss — will be quoting in a few months, go ahead and read this Wired magazine article from the March issue that was posted this morning: Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. Those of us who read Chris’s Long Tail blog have been following along the book’s (and article’s) development (at least mentions of it) for quite a while, but this article is the first step in its public roll-out. And it’s a clever one.

For example, if you are one of the first 10,000 who sign up, Wired will send you a copy of its March issue for free. And not as a part of a subscription offer (but you’ll be trading them you e-mail address for it). In one of those weird magazine things, however, it will probably be April before you receive the copy of the magazine, according to the fine print.

And then, there is the How to Make Money Around Free Content wiki entry on Wired’s How-to Wiki that features a Hugh MacLeod cartoon and a Fred Wilson headline quote (what, no Robert Scoble?)

The topic may seem a bit dated for those among us who are online community, marketing and media obsessed — those who, for example, check in with Seth Godin on an hourly basis. Seth has provided us (beautifully) for years with the parable version of the value of free phenomena. Seth is the Mother Goose of marketing gurus — he explains things in ways even a marketing director can grasp them. And on the other end of the spectrum, a few brilliant academics have explored in deep, scholarly ways, other avenues in the village of the Economics of Free: for example, anything written by Yochai Benkler.

However, I predict that Anderson’s article — and subsequent book — will get the topic out of the marketing department and academia into the hands of finance and executive types. I’m hoping the book will — like The Long Tail — get into the hands of people who can not only get it, but do something about it.

Quote:

“But free is not quite as simple — or as stupid — as it sounds. Just because products are free doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere, isn’t making huge gobs of money. Google is the prime example of this. The monetary benefits of craigslist are enormous as well, but they’re distributed among its tens of thousands of users rather than funneled straight to Craig Newmark Inc. To follow the money, you have to shift from a basic view of a market as a matching of two parties — buyers and sellers — to a broader sense of an ecosystem with many parties, only some of which exchange cash.”

No matter, you have several months before you have to read the book. (I’m sure there will be a free downloadable version.) And even a few more months after that before its title becomes a square on buzzword bingo cards. In the meantime, I suggest you read the free article and write down some notes on a 3X5 card.

Cory Doctorow is reporting that Bertelsmann’s “Random House Audio has announced that it will now allow its audiobooks to be sold without DRM by all of its online retailers.” Already, it sells DRM-free audiobooks through emusic.com. From that experience, Random House Audio has learned that not treating its customers like criminals is a good thing. One would hope such a move by the largest book publisher in the world would lead other publishers to recognize (as I blogged in January) how ridiculous it is to encrypt downloaded versions of audiobooks while the same audiobooks on CDs are not encrypted (i.e., you can go to a public library with your laptop and load up DRM-free audiobooks for free, but you can’t buy the same thing online). As I said then, for the same reason Amazon.com doesn’t sell music downloads that have DRM, it should pressure publishers to allow it to sell DRM-free audiobooks on its new acquisition, Audible.com.

Oh, yeah, and then it should do the same with eBooks for the Kindle.

(I learned about this on Twitter from @marshallk.)

You can transfer audiobooks
from Audible.com to your Kindle.
That is, unless, you use a Mac.

Here’s some big news for audiobook listeners (I’m one): Amazon has announced this morning they are buying Audible.com. If you’re an audiobook listener, you probably already know that Audible serves as the back-end for audiobook downloads for Apple’s iTunes Store. However, as I’ve said on this blog before, it’s crazy to purchase audiobooks via the iTunes Store rather than directly from Audible.com as the direct purchase allows re-downloads of any books you buy — and the iTunes Store doesn’t. Amazon.com has a similar “library” backup feature for digital media purchased there (except MP3s), like Kindle eBook files.

I have some problems with audiobooks via Audible.com, however — some problems Amazon could solve. First, audiobooks are incredibly expensive — just like the inflated cost of eBooks before Amazon stepped in with the Kindle and a price around $10 for best-sellers. An audiobook of a bestseller is more likely to be more expensive than the print version — and in the same range as the cost of an audiobook you’d purchase on a CD in a bookstore. To get around such inflated pricing, I have a subscription plan on the service that provides one book credit per month. I never go over the limit as the per-book cost can be stratospheric — as in, provide me all the incentive necessary to drop by the Nashville Library and check out the book on a CD. Oh yes, and on a CD, those audiobooks don’t have all the DRM one finds on the same aduiobooks one downloads from Audible.com. Let me translate this: I can drop by the library and transfer DRM-free audiobooks to my computer. Gee, that sounds like the same issue Amazon.com fixed when they started offering music downloads recently. Hmmm. Dear Jeff: You can do it dude. Cheaper audiobooks. No DRM — just like the same books on CDs. Hey, you da man.

Speaking of audiobooks and Amazon and Audible, here’s a suggestion for Amazon: Quit locking out Mac users from using their Kindleto listen to audiobooks from Audible.com. Here’s what I mean: The only way to transfer an audiobook to the device (precisely, a DRM-ladened audiobook purchased from the leading online retail sources of audiobooks — Amazon, Apple or Audible.com) is via a computer. The only computer operating system with which one can authorize a Kindle to play an audiobook purchased from Amazon, Apple or Audible.com, is with software available only on the Widows operating system.

How did I discover this? I have both an iPhone and an old-school iPod nano for listening to audiobooks, so I hadn’t previously taken much of a look at the audiobook capabilities of the Kindle. And frankly, while the device has a headphone jack for listening to audiobooks, that feature wasn’t heavily touted in the roll-out of the product. After a bit of struggle recently, I can now understand why this little-touted feature is so little touted.

The first problem has been noted and is what the pundits would call “the elephant in the room”: While you can store the text and black/white graphics from 100+ books on the 256 MB of a Kindle, the number of audiobooks is considerably less — say, less than one, in some instances. In my experiment, on a Kindle with about a dozen text books already loaded on it, I was limited to one Audible.com file containing an eight-hour recording.

However, I couldn’t listen to any of that file, as I discovered the following message buried in the directions found on Amazon.com regarding using an Audible.com file on a Kindle (something allowed) if that file is transferred to the Kindle using a Mac:

“In order to play audiobooks on the Amazon Kindle, you must first activate the device to your account (using the Windows software, AudibleManager)…If you are a Macintosh user, you need to connect your Kindle to a Windows-based computer running AudibleManager to authorize your Kindle using the above instructions. You may be able to authrize your Kindle running AubibleManager on Windows on your Macintosh is you have your Macintosh configured to run Windows. Once authorized with your Audible credentialis, you can then use audible files downloaded through Audible Manger under Windows or itunes by copying them to your Kindle via USB.

Uh, no thank you. I’ll just use my iPhone.

Sidenote — a positive word about the Kindle: As I’ve written before, I have one and despite its god-awful hardware design and some of the most incredibly bad user-interface ideas I’ve ever witnessed (see earlier review), I like the convenience of having dozens of books in my briefcase and I especially like the think-it, buy-it instant-shopification features it offers with an EVDO-powered access to the Amazon store. Oh, yes, and I’m big fan of the way your ebook purchases are backed up on Amazon.com. Unlike most badly designed things — say, the QWERTY keyboard — the Kindle’s bad features never get easier to use with experience. Almost daily, I’ll pick it up to put it away to discover I’ve advanced dozens of pages in the process. It boggles me that its designers failed to take into consideration how people hold a book when they read it.

But that’s not what I wanted to rant about this time.

Technorati Tags: amazon.com, audible.com, kindle

Scott Rosenberg is working on a book about the history of blogging. I’m thinking of writing a book, also. Mine will be a detailed look at the history of books about blogging.

Made me start thinking: What actors will play what roles if the book becomes a movie? (Feel free to comment below.) (Actually, I’m thinking if it makes it to film, it’s more likely to be animation — or perhaps a schlock thriller.)

Note: Lameness aside, I think Scott is an excellent author for a book I believe is much needed. I look forward to reading it. Back in July, Scott was kind enough to point to a post I made on the subject of a need for such a history — or “histories,” as I suggested. Glad he’s doing it.

Rexblog Flashbacks: In 2004, I wrote a rather long post about books I thought were “accidentally” about blogging. A few weeks before that, I wrote a brief post suggesting that before a “blogging book war” broke out, all the authors should surrender and find other topics. That today there are 320 books one can buy on Amazon that have the word “blog” in the title obviously proves no one took my advice. (Add in phrases like weblog, blogging, etc., and you’ll find many more.)

Positive #8: Kindle’s
‘experimental’ browser
is so bad, it’s good.

I’ve had an Amazon Kindle for over a week. (Sidenote: I purchased it after they started saying it wouldn’t be available until after Christmas). There are some things I like about it — and some obvious and well-documented things about it that make it, frankly, inconceivably bad.

I was waiting until next week to review it, but when I read on TechCrunch that Kindles are going for $1,500 on eBay (geez, people, don’t be crazy), I thought I should go ahead an post what I’ve discovered after reading a couple of eBooks on a Kindle and messing around with most of the features. (Private message to Aaron Pressman re: eBay: You win.)

Here are some things I like about the Kindle:

1. I like the concept even more, now that I’ve tried it: I can read books on a little rectangular chunk of plastic and the print is very clear and paper-like. And I can carry around a dozen or so books (up to 200, in theory) in my briefcase. Bring on the flying car, and I’ve got everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

2. It has lots of the customer-friendly things I like about Amazon: Since I’ve been a heavy-duty customer of Amazon for a decade, the service already knows what books to recommend to me.

3. The books cost about $10: That’s for current best-sellers that cost $25 or so in hardbook. I’m buying books I’d never purchase in hardback (also, no way am I going to be seen in public reading a David Baldacci novel). I have no doubt (I learned this from the iTunes Store) that I will end up spending more on books in the long run. Frankly, there are lots of hardbacks I’d never purchase that I’ll download with no second thought. This is the true magic of the eBook concept and what will make the concept succeed — however, that’s a concept bigger than just the Kindle.

4. Think it, buy it, anywhere (if you’re not in Montana): The EVDO wireless connection is incredibly fast when it comes to downloading books. (However, there are some spots where it doesn’t work, I’ve read.) This aspect of the Kindle is truly phenomenal. Indeed, if anything about the device is radically disruptive, it’s the way in which cellular technology is being used in a device that is not a mobile phone.

5. I can read it even if I can’t find my glasses: I’m farsighted so I appreciate the way in which the type can be enlarged so that I can read easily.

6. The e-mail a document to Kindle feature: The way in which you can email documents to your Kindle (a way to get documents onto the device if you don’t have it hooked to your computer) is very creative. (You send the document as an email attachment for 10¢ a document.)

7. The Amazon Digital Libary: They get an A+ for this feature: When you purchase an eBook from Amazon, a record of the purchase is kept in your Amazon account’s digital library so that you can download it again. (Long-time readers of this blog may know why I’m a fan of Amazon’s approach in this department.)

8. The funky web browser is so bad, it’s good: The web browser is labeled “experimental,” but I find it entertaining to see websites striped of most graphics and advertising — reminds me of 1995. A text-heavy site like Wikipedia (or, say, SmallBusiness.com) actually “work” on the Kindle. Most traditional sites (except, perhaps, those that a optimized for mobile devices) lose lots in the translation.

Here are some things I don’t like about the Kindle:

1. The design of the hardware is off-the-charts bad: To be honest, I really wanted to be able to say that I thought Robert Scoble and others had gone over-board with their piling-on, kick-sand-in-the-face-of-the-dorky-kid observations of how crudely designed the usability aspects of the device are. But if anything, they’ve been nice. Every bad thing that’s been said about the buttons and the way one can carelessly click something and end up god-knows-where is absolutely true. There’s a button labeled “back,” for instance that I still am confused with after 10 days of using it. Using the Kindle has made me appreciate something I’ve never — and I mean never — appreciated before despite spending most of my adult life using computers all day, every day: The Cursor. The little blinking cursor — and I’m not talking about the arrow that shows up when you move a mouse around, but that blinking horizontal line that predates the mouse. That someone could design a digital device with a text display that has no cursor is bold, indeed. It’s also crazy.

2. Anything other than a book — as in a book that is primarily words on paper — displayed on the Kindle is awful: When they say you can purchase Time magazine on the Kindle, it’s the articles — the text only. This is a device that’s good for displaying text and illustrations that lack grays. I’m thinking Wall Street Journal before they went to color where every illustration was that pointalistic style — that might work on a Kindle. In other words, digimagazine fans, this is not your platform.

3. The book selection is puny: Wait, you say. I’m sure the Kindle may have access to more eBooks than any other source, but last Sunday, I was sitting with an author who has had a book on the New York Times Bestseller list that still sells thousands of copies each year as the title is used in college and high school courses. I was going to purchase the book to show the author how it’s done, except it wasn’t available. So we looked up other books by authors we know who have mid-list (back-list) books that continue to have book-club and assigned-reading sales, and, zilch, we came up empty. In other words, the title list for the Kindle is front-end loaded with books one will only find along the short-tail. I’m sure (?) this will rapidly change (a similar problem plagued the early iTunes Store) as publishers jump on the Kindle wagon — especially if the device is going to be marketed to college students. But for now, don’t expect to find those obscure titles you may think will be available.

4. Yet another proprietary format: I guess we’ll have to go through a decade or so of the whole DRM thing that has plagued the music industry. Lots of other folks have written about this, so I’ll just skip it for now and say, I can share print books with my kids or colleagues, but I can’t share Kindle books. Big conceptual flaw in the whole “future of books” thing.

Summary: Amazon is a great online retailer. Bezo’s desire to solve the eBook dilemma is valiant and the Kindle is a step in the right direction. But Kindle 1.0 should be purchased only by individuals who have a taste for 1970s Yugoslovian design and who will buy just about any gadget that comes along. I hope, however, that Amazon and others keep pushing the concept forward. I hope they actually listen to some of the bad reviews and bring in real designers to create the next generation of the device. I’m more convinced than ever, however, that if Apple were to offer an iPod Touch in a size similar to the display area of the Kindle — and, perhaps, support the Kindle format — it would revolutionize the eBook concept. As it is now, the Kindle won’t.

Scott Karp has a long post today about books and advertising — as in, “can advertising in books be a business model?” — picking up a theme included in Tim O’Reilly’s post about eBook economics that I blogged about the other day.

Here are some quick points I’ll throw into this thread:

1. Many business books are themselves ads: Do I need to explain this? For many consultants, professional-speakers, celebrity pundits, etc., having a by-line on a book is a required prerequisite for “club” membership. Often, these books play some part in the revenue stream of the individual, but many times they are, at best, loss-leaders. Some book publishers have even gotten into the “booking” business to participate in the lucrative revenue streams associated with publishing — but that aren’t about selling books. Indeed, one of the most creative-marketing author-marketer-speakers I am aware of, Seth Godin (to use an example of someone who is familiar to lots of bloggers) often gives away eBooks because he knows they enhance his “brand” and will help generate revenue in other ways. While he can — and does — sell books in conventional ways (very successfully, as some of the books he has given away digitally have simultaneously become bestsellers in print), he demonstrates that books can also be ads (or, in his case, brand-building marketing tools).

2. The Whittle Larger Agenda Series: Thanks to the New York Times new “free-the-archives” policy, I can magically point back to some of their stories from the late 80s and early 90s about Chris Whittle’s success at single-sponsor advertising-supported books. The books were about 100 pages long — I have a few sitting in a library at home — and were sponsored by FedEx and others. They were distributed to about 150,000 “business leaders” and were written by such luminaries as John Kenneth Galbraith, David Halberstam, George Gilder, Edward Jay Epstein, Richard Holbrooke, Daniel Seligman, William Greider, Robert Waterman and James Atlas.

Before concluding the concept was not successful — as in, if it was successful, how come it’s no longer around? — I’ll point out that a lot of the ideas Whittle had in the late 80s and 90s were extremely successful — he just didn’t sustain that success because he was always onto the next great idea. The success of his ideas, however, is evident today by the explosion in custom publishing over the past two decades. It can also be seen in the number of Whittle alumni who are still having an impact in publishing and media. In other words, Whittle is to publishing what Tucker was to the automobile. (Obscure sidenote: Personally, however, I was always more a fan of Phillip Moffitt.)

3. Ads are ubiquitous, so why not in books?: When ads are in bathrooms, in the buckets used to place items when you are checking through airport security, in restaurant menus and before, after and during movies, why are books sacred? (Personally, I hate being bombarded by all this spam and will gladly pay a premium to keep from seeing it — but, alas, I seem to be in a minority.)

Later: 4. The book is a publishing format, not a business model: Upon reflection (i.e., driving into the office), this reminds me of a recent discussion in which the future of magazines and magazine business models was being debated (among friends) in which I noted the magazine format can fit into lots of different business models. The same goes for the printed book or eBook format, as well.

This post from Tim O’Reilly is required reading for those who are professionally (or otherwise) interested in understanding the economics of eBooks. Unlike a lot of the current screaming across the table that’s taking place between eBook enthusiasts and those who yawn at them or point out their obvious short-comings, O’Reilly takes a reasoned, rational, insider’s look at both the opportunities and limitations of the business of digital books. Obviously (to many who read this blog, at least) O’Reilly has unique insight into the topic. He’s written on the topic of business-models of digital book distribution since 1995 and, according to his post, the re-seller of digitally-published books, Safari, is now O’Reilly’s third largest customer behind Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. (I’d like to ask him a clarifying question regarding that fact by wondering aloud where Ingram Book Co. would fall on that list — I’m surprised they aren’t #3.)

Again, O’Rielly’s post is about as crystal clear as it gets, straight from the CEO of a publishing company that caters to tech-professionals and tech-enthusiasts, an audience of gizmo early-adopters — and from someone who can only benefit from a wide-scale adoption of eBooks. Despite such apparent self-interest, he recommends to publishers — and would-be publishers — to stay realistic.

Money quote:

“My advice to publishers and authors is this: figure out what it costs to produce what you sell, estimate what kind of volume you’ll be able to achieve using the best available data, and then set your prices at a level that will deliver a reasonable profit from your efforts. Sound familiar? That’s what you do in business today. Don’t expect any suspension of the law of gravity. Leave that to the subprime folks, who followed on the heels of the dotcommers in coming up with new math that ultimately didn’t make any sense.

Then again, there are some ways to make money because of eBooks rather by from eBooks, but that’s another topic for another day.

There have been lots of good comments on my week-old post about the Amazon Kindle vs. a possible larger-format iPod Touch. Today, Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers (the sixth largest trade book publisher in America and the world’s largest publisher of Bibles and books for the Christian market) comments that Apple may now have a good 2/3rds solution to eBooks — a hypothetical larger format iPod Touch and the iTunes Store channel — but what they don’t have is a relationship with book publishers — and Amazon is most publishers #1 customer.

Says Mike:

“I completely agree. I would much rather have an Apple Touchbook than the Kindle (which I own). However, you’re forgetting one small detail. The device is only one-third the equation. iTunes is another third. So far so good. A seamless way to get content from the store onto the device. What Apple is missing is the RELATIONSHIPS. They don’t have any relationships with book publishers that enables them to get access to the content. (I know because I am the CEO of the Thomas Nelson. We are the sixth largest book publisher in the U.S.) Could Apple develop these relationships? Sure. My point is that they haven’t started and this is where Amazon has a leg up. For most of us, they are one of our largest customers—and we trust them.

Related: I’ve had several people email me saying they already read books on their iPhone. And one web-apps company has contacted me with a solution they offer related to reading an eBook this way. I’ll be trying out the different solutions — along with my review of the Kindle I’ve ordered — sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Later: Robert Scoble pops a blood vessel ranting after his first week’s use of the Amazon Kindle. Really, Robert, tell us what you really think about the Kindle. I lost count after the fifth, “Whoever designed this thing should be fired.” He then gives the designers the worst insult imaginable, “Did you hire some out-of-work Microsoft employees?”

Equal time: I point once more to Aaron Pressman’s positive review.

Longtime readers of this blog know I’ve always been a fan of 8020 Publishing (and JPG magazine). I started blogging about the founders when they announced their concept three years ago and later when their first issue was available. I also blogged about it when they announced they were going to expand the concept beyond JPG magazine and I lamented the startup challenges they faced when two of the founders left.

So today, I’m happy to see the New York Times has discovered them and has published a glowing profile.

Quote:

(CNet founder and investor in 8020 Halsey) Minor thinks he can also make money from old-fashioned print. Online readers vote on their favorite submissions appearing at JPGmag.com. Then a tiny staff of 10 designs a layout for the winners and about 50,000 high-quality slick-looking magazines are printed six times a year. They are sold through $25 annual subscriptions and on newsstands for $6 each.

Earlier this week, I linked to this TechCrunch item about a Google patent to, in Michael Arrington’s paraphrase of the patent-speak, “give users the ability to search and browse their own content, and receive an electronic or hard copy version of the final product. And that final product will include advertisements highly relevant to the user.” (As I noted at the time, Dear Google: Please sign me up as to beta-test this product.)

So, during this week of eBook reader hype, let’s consider the Google patent, the first-mover efforts of 8020, or, for that matter, the self-publishing services like Lulu.com or (for some Nashville-centric linking) the technology and unique distribution available through Lightning Source, an Ingram Book business unit that serves as the back-end for many on-demand book-publishing services. During this week when many seem obsessed with painting a picture of a future where print is only “replicated” on a digital device, let us remember that some primordial force is similarly pulling us in the opposite direction. Some force that makes bloggers love to see their names in print. Some force that makes people want to write or buy books about using technology, even technology that needs no explanation — need proof? There are multiple titles on how to use Flickr.

So, let’s not get carried away with the whole “print is dead” meme (Isn’t it ironic that such a book is available in hardback, and not eBook only?). Google understands it’s worth patenting something based on the proposition that print is not dying. And others get it, including Apple and Flickr and, obviously, HP does — they even have a wiki devoted to the topic of getting stuff you create digitally into print — using their technology, of course.

Related: Over the years, I’ve softened my stance on the notion that people may want to view a replication of a printed page on a digital device — but I’ve not completely come off the stance. (And a note to those who don’t read this blog: Obviously, I think people want to access damn-near everything digitally — I just don’t think the best “form” for accessing that material is in a way that replicates how the information appears in print.) Also, In February, I made some predictions about the future of magazines, one of which is likely to become a quote I’ll be known for forever in some circles: “As long as there are coffee tables, there will be magazines.”

Bonus points: The NY Times piece today includes the prerequisite Samir Husni quote.

Technorati Tags: 8020, lightningsource